[author: Saud Aldawsari]
L.L. Bean is increasing production of its duck boots in Maine with a new manufacturing facility as demand for the boots increases. The company has leased a “110,000-square-foot building and plans to install a third injection-molding machine to manufacture the [boot’s] rubber soles,” and it will also add 100 additional employees in 2017. The addition of the new machine will also increase the company’s ability to provide different colors, “expanding the dark brown and tan options that have grounded the boot since its inception more than a century ago.”
L.L. Bean’s annual sales have grown significantly in the last few years, rising from “fewer than 100,000 a decade ago to more than 600,000 this year.” However, Dan Hess, CEO of Merchant Forecast, noted that retailers like L.L. Bean should take a “measured approach to growth,” stating that “there can be times when true classics become trendy . . . . Teenage girls in Malibu are not always going to be wearing L.L. Bean boots, but they are right now.” Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for The NPD Group, agrees with this advice. However, according to Cohen, L.L. Bean “seems to be handling the issue of supply well.” Cohen believes that an “increase in production of about 10 percent strikes him as prudent, . . . but pumping up production more than that would be worrisome.”
The company’s commitment to manufacturing the boots at its Lewiston and Brunswick, Maine plants is now paying dividends. According to Sara Gerrish, Redbook magazine’s fashion market director, part of what makes the boots attractive is that they are made in America. L.L. Bean’s director of manufacturing, Donna Lamberth, said that “[t]here’s a significant sense of pride associated with actually making something here in Maine with Maine employees and producing something that customers love.”
